-1"Remember that incident in Mission City? I found a piece of something in the rubble there after they started letting people back in. A… shard. I still have it. Want to see?" She held out the Shard to him. It was immediately obvious to him what it was a fragment of, and the patterns decorating it looked awful familiar in light of the blue fire he had seen… "I found that, and afterward I started having the strangest dreams. A world made out of metal… A war… And the same face over and over, silver metal, red eyes, the face of the Devil himself!" Sam instantly looked up at Sarah. "Megatron." Her lack of surprise seemed a little odd to him as she continued. "And… and there was this square thing, a cube, with the blue fire you saw. I saw it in my dreams every night. Every night it would explode into a bazillion pieces." There wasn't even a pause. "Let me guess," Sam started. "The All Spark? Sorry if I don't seem surprised, but I have seen Megatron and the All Spark before you did, so I know." She nodded, knowing more about his involvement with things than he could possibly have imagined. "That's not the strangest part. In my dream the explosion would hang in the air all around me and the fragments would begin to shine like little blue stars and then they'd all rush inward and hit me. …Well, not so much hit me as disappear into me. And then there'd be this… this light, and…" She paused. "That's when I'd start dreaming about battles, and when I'd see him." Sam was surprised by this however, he thought, not exactly knowing what to make of this dream, but got a theory. "Maybe it means that it somehow came to be a part of you, and maybe when it goes into the battles you can see the All Spark's past. As for Megatron, I have no idea." Though Sarah already knew this, she appreciated his effort to figure it out, and so she smiled. "Want to know more? That isn't half of what's happened." By that point more than willing to hear the whole story, he settled down. "Sure, fire away," he said, leaning backwards in his chair, ready and willing to listen. She shivered slightly, remembering the stark terror in her dreams even though, still unknown to Sam, their subject was now her closest friend. "My dreams… they all ended the same way." She paused. "He… he saw me. He saw me. Th…that hand… reaching out to grab me… I…" Another pause. "That's when I'd wake up screaming." She shivered again, and he felt he understood her terror all too well. "Well, you shouldn't worry, Megatron's dead, I made sure of that," Sam said, trying to lend some kind of comfort to the girl in front of him.
"You'd be surprised as to what I've seen," she said semi-ominously. "From the moment I picked up the Shard, that energy bound me to something. The All Spark was in close contact with something when it was destroyed, something alive. From the instant I touched it I was bound to whatever it had touched, and it was using my body… using my life… to sustain itself!" Sam felt the color in his face drain, remembering that the last thing the All Spark had touched was Megatron's spark. "Oh boy." Fully understanding his sentiment, Sarah just nodded. "That was what I thought too, the day I saw the jet." It was all the poor boy could do not to fall over from surprise and stark pants-wetting terror at the implications. "Then, does that mean… that… Megatron's alive?" Sarah gave a sigh and began to explain what she had seen and experienced that fateful day so long ago. "It was badly damaged, that jet… One wing halfway gone, a good chunk of the fuselage missing… but it was flying." She paused. "I could feel a call inside me, something was pulling me, drawing me to it. I don't know why, but something deep inside me forced me to follow it."
Sam listened and watched Sarah intently. "Go on." Nodding, she continued. "I followed it across the city, clean out of the city, down to the reservoir, for that was where it came down." She paused. "Not the best landing… I went closer. I don't know why… I walked up the embankment and entered my nightmare." She took a deep breath. "I don't think I've ever been that scared before. Not while awake, anyway. He was there, right before my eyes, alive." There was another pause as the perceived implications of the Decepticon's survival hit home. "Oh god, he's going to kill me for sure," Sam whined, now knowing that Megatron was alive. Knowing that such wouldn't be the case, she smiled reassuringly. "Sam, a lot of things have changed since that day. The fact that I stand here should be a good indication of that. Would you like to know why my standing here is so darn important?" Not sure what to say or if to say anything, Sam just nodded.
Standing, she looked around the room and spotted a security camera. "This should do nicely," she said with a smile as she walked up to it. Sam looked at her oddly, wondering if she was crazy or what. That blue fire came again and a tendril snaked out like lightning, much as it had done when he dropped the All Spark on that day… Smiling up at the security camera, Sarah spoke to it in a soft, gentle voice as if talking to a scared kitten. "Laserbeak… Laserbeak, wake up." The once security camera began to shift and whirred to life, soon turning into a mechanical bird-like robot. The robotic bird instantly swooped from it's perch on the wall and flew over Sam's head, making him duck. "Laserbeak," Sarah scolded. She held out her forearm like an expert falconer and the robotic bird landed on her arm. "You behave yourself, mister," she said to the bird. The bird screeched then chirped at the end, letting Sarah know that it could understand her. She smiled. "Good boy." Then she giggled as the bird used beak and feet to climb up her arm to sit on her shoulder. Laserbeak squawked like a parrot and whistled twice. "Laserbeak reporting for duty, rawk!" Reaching up with her other arm, she patted the bird gently before turning to Sam. "This is who I am… what I have become." Her voice was low. Looking at the bird with an evil glare, Sam had only one question. "And what exactly is that?" She didn't so much as blink or show any other sort of reaction. "I am the All Spark," she said simply. Sam's jaw must have hit the floor because next thing he knew he was falling out of his chair in surprise. Laserbeak took off from Sarah's shoulder and circled Sam's head. "Man down! Man down!" She was by his side in an instant. "Sam? Sam?" She paused. "If he took it this hard, how's he going to react to my guardian?"
Laserbeak flew over to the door, and out, when someone was entering through the door to McDonalds. The bird flew into the sky where the massive warplane circled and chirped. "Sam? Wake up, Sam…" There was a hearty laugh from outside, a shadow of a plane dancing on the pavement outside on the road. "Very funny," she said sarcastically. "Thanks for the vote of confidence!" She paused. "Earth to Sam. Come in, Sam." The boy fluttered his eyes open, looked up to see Sarah and smiled goofily. "Are you the tooth fairy?" She held up three fingers. "All right, genius, how many fingers am I holding up?" She sighed. "It's okay, the bird's gone now and that laugh you just heard would be my guardian reacting to Laserbeak telling him about you passing out." That got a reaction. "What?" Sam snapped out of his weird almost unconscious outburst. "Who's your guardian?" Sarah only had one thing to say. "Come outside with me and you'll see." Sam got to his feet slowly, walked out of McDonalds with Sarah and looked around. "I don't see anything," he said eventually. She pointed at the jet that still circled overhead. "Look up." Sam looked up and nearly pooped his pants. "Decepticon!" Yelling at the top of his lungs, he grabbed Sarah's hand. "Run, Sarah, run!" Yelping loudly, she face planted straight into the asphalt. Just then, the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone upon the circling jet, making it sparkle… silver. "Sam, I… OW!"
Sam looked back and once again felt that fear he had a while ago as he saw the polished silver jet. "Oh jeez, not good, not good!" Her yelp had drawn the jet's attention and it banked sharply, beginning to descend. Sam went over to Sarah to see if she was all right, but suddenly he was engulfed by a shadow. He gulped and looked up to see the jet transformed into a giant being. "Ah, double jeez." Getting up, Sarah promptly flipped out. "Don't! Don't!" Flipping in a major way, she stepped between the new arrival and the now thoroughly petrified Sam, her arms spread wide. "It's all right! I'm fine!" Casting a momentary glance over her shoulder, she said in a very tense voice, "Sam, meet my guardian." Sarah slapped herself in the forehead. "This is not how I wanted this to happen…" Sam watched as the guardian bent over to look at him face to face, and nearly peed his pants when he saw that the guardian was Megatron. Those hellish red eyes fixed on him. "He was trying to hurt you," Megatron growled, almost asking for permission to kick his butt. "He thought you were trying to kill us both!" Sarah was practically screaming at him. "Well, he was getting too close," Megatron snarled at the boy, further frightening the lad. "I swear I never even touched the girl," Sam said, stumbling slightly. "This really isn't how I wanted this to happen," Sarah said again.
Bumblebee drove up to the scene and transformed, pointing behind him with his thumb. "I think you caused a massive panic there, Megatron." The three looked behind Bumblebee and saw people frantically running around in terror. "Oh… Right," Sarah said. "We'd best get out of here. Where we show up, trouble isn't far behind… Bee, you and Sam get moving. Megatron, you know what you're doing. As for me…" Sam's jaw dropped once again as she watched the human girl he had come to know as Sarah, turn into what looked like a black-hued twin to Megatron. Sam stuttered and pointed from Megatron to Sarah in a confused way. "How?" He was cut off by Bumblebee's drivers seat belt launching out and yanking him into the seat, slamming the door once he was in and racing off away from the calamity. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her transform and take to the skies, a black twin of the alien aircraft he'd seen so long ago…
